Palm Beach County, Fla., may include Worth Avenue — home to upscale gems like Gucci, Chanel and Sachs Fifth Avenue — but the hottest fashion accessory among Palm Beach County government employees is the pedometer. You've seen it — that little gadget that counts your steps per day and encourages you to become less sedentary.

It's been spotted on the belts of local politicians, the bathing suits of lifeguards and the bunker gear of firefighters. Its popularity was so unexpected that county wellness committee members found themselves scrambling to get overnight deliveries in time for the February kick-off date of our "Start! Moving Challenge."

It wasn't easy to spur the pedometer to must-wear status. Palm Beach County is a self-insured, midsize employer, with employees aged 46, on average, with health risks that mirror much of America — high rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Posting health care costs near $50 million, encouraging employees to embrace wellness was difficult.

Palm Beach County began a wellness program in late 2007, underwritten by Cigna. In the first year, the program featured onsite biometric screenings, wellness-related articles in the bi-weekly newsletter, presentations to management and an online health risk assessment, offering a free pedometer to anyone who completed it.

With much gusto, we ordered thousands of pedometers for quick distribution to the county's 5,000 employees enrolled in the Cigna program. Suddenly, granola bars and nurses in lab coats replaced coffee and donuts at large county meetings. Still, at the end of year one, the program had a disappointing 398 participants. The lesson learned? Know your corporate culture and customize your wellness program accordingly.

So, at the beginning of year two, we heeded workers' requests for more fitness-focused activities and finally returned phone calls from the American Heart Association, wishing to get its foot in the door with its national "Start!" walking campaign. This program was embraced by the county's wellness committee due to its easy, turn-key approach and catchy materials. Also, it offered the perfect opportunity to distribute more of those pedometers gathering dust.

Improving health and morale

With budget cuts and the threat of layoffs for the first time since the early 1990s, morale needed boosting as much as health care costs needed stemming. So the county's wellness team shook hands with the American Heart Association and settled on a February rollout for our first fitness-focused campaign.

We recruited our wildly popular county administrator to host three, half-mile "Walk with Bob" sessions during work hours. The Engineering Department created colored maps of the United States so that each of the county's 30 departments could pledge to walk a combined number of steps to destinations like Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, New York and Napa Valley, Calif.

The response to the program was overwhelming. Suddenly, pedometers were flying off shelves, and nearly 2,000 employees signed up for the challenge. The first "Walk with Bob" event, held on a rare 41-degree morning in South Florida, had about 300 employees marching enthusiastically in tow, all wearing pedometers clicking away the first of the 10,000 steps they'd pledged to reach that day. Bob's second and third walks were equally popular. Destinations were reached, t-shirts were earned, morale was increased.

What made the difference?

Few Palm Beach County government employees are office types with desks and computers. Many employees guard the beaches, tend the parks, plant the landscaping and fight the fires. So trying to apply online health risk assessments and office-based screenings wasn't an effective approach, because it didn't reach people where they were.

Wellness programs must be custom-fit to the corporate culture they seek to affect. Many employers may take months, or even years, to find that right fit. But the success of any wellness program can only be measured in the long term, and management must take a long-term leadership approach in getting employees to begin and continue a healthful lifestyle.

Wellness is a worthy component of any corporate health strategy because it is one area where upper management joins entry-level staff in a common struggle and a common goal. Encouraged and energized about the remainder of 2009, Palm Beach County's wellness committee has set its sights on this spring's "Walk in the Park," this summer's "Gym-Dandy," and autumn's "Walktober" events — optimistic that we've only just started to reach our wellness potential.

Contributing Editor Nancy L. Bolton is the director of risk management for the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners in West Palm Beach, Fla.